Q: You recently wrote that several kinds of birds often stand on one leg but you didn't explain why. Whenever I see a flock of flamingos in a zoo, at least some of them are on one leg, Surely ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Flamingos are a pretty underrated bird. But ...

Last Word is New Scientist’s long-running series in which readers give scientific answers to each other’s questions, ranging from the minutiae of everyday life to absurd astronomical hypotheticals. To ...

It’s one of those classic sights that feels like a glitch in nature: a bright pink bird balanced on a spindly little stick of a leg while the other one is tucked away like it’s not even there. You’d ...